Today on Stack and Growth, we've got one of our lead designers, Monica Beasting, on to talk about being a designer in the AI era. Monica walks us through her journey as an artist and graphic designer into marketing, where she draws the line on using AI, and the tools and resources that help her keep pushing forward with innovation and authenticity. Hope you all enjoy. Welcome to Stack and Growth, call to action.
A show for the Trailblazers, change makers, and paradigm shifters. Each week, a different marketing hero who is called to make a change in their field will join us to walk through each step of their journey. They'll cover the highs, the lows, and what's coming next. Together, we'll help you find the changes needed for your own business to win.
I'm Steph Crenola here with Evan Hughes, and today we are so excited to welcome Refine Labs lead designer, Monica Beasting. Monica's been a force behind Refine Labs investment in our own brand identity, as well as that of countless customers. As we confront what creative looks like in the AI era, we wanted to sit with some of our creative team to talk with them about how they've adapted to these constant tech changes. And Monica is our first guest in this mini series.
Monica, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to have this conversation. We were just talking a little bit about how emotionally charged this whole past couple of years, future couple of years must be for y'all.
So let's start with the bright, sunny days of yawned past. What got you into design and specifically marketing? How did you as an artist and as a creative choose marketing for a career or did it choose you like it has for a lot of other marketers? I think it chose me.
I have definitely always known I wanted to go down a more creative path. I tried my hand at some other things before college, like interior design or advertising, things like that. And I wanted the challenge that graphic design was. So that's where I kind of ended up, got my degree.
And I think I ended up where I am just because I love solving puzzles and working in marketing agency gives you the opportunities to do that over and over again. And they're all different puzzles, different challenges. So I like the opportunity to work with a lot of different clients. I love it.
You've seen a lot, I'm sure too. Kind of the transition, like talking a little bit through to as your background, how it progressed to current state, right? And maybe some of those other solutions or maybe those milestones and like whether it's learning curve or tools or adaptation, just to kind of set the atone a little bit about like where you were versus where you are now. Yeah, I feel like I found my footing pretty early.
I started doing a lot of graphic design for museums and I really thought that that's where I was going to end up. I was doing specifically science museum signage because my favorite animals are dinosaurs and I just thought that would be a fun job. And then so all of my internships were in museums and I don't know, like I worked for my university for the Dean of Students office. That was probably my first taste of real marketing materials rather than like internal projects.
And I just stumbled into jobs where that was kind of the norm and where I had opportunities to do multiple things. I always preferred the marketing projects and those agencies as well. I think this is so fascinating. I didn't know that you started in museums, but looking at where you are now, so much of what you do for Refine Labs internally and client facing is finding a voice for these brands and thinking about museum signs that I've seen.
It doesn't sound like something that would call the attention of a creative because I feel like I've seen a lot of signs that are just like name of dinosaur and text about the dinosaur. But like how coming from that, how do you blend that history informational tone with having a creative human unique vision behind it? I just want to hear a little more about that. Yeah, I think my main goal with every design I do is to tell a compelling story.
So I think like the museum signage and things like that, it's the challenge of how can I make this the most interesting? How can I frame this so people actually read it? Or even like I like learning myself. So that was kind of an added bonus.
There was a whole summer where I could identify fish species by just looking at pictures because I had to create like an entire catalog to library of the fish in our aquarium. So yeah, I think I just like taking information that's been given to me and like figuring out the best way to communicate with any audience that might be on the other end. That's awesome. I love knowing this about you now.
If you look on the website for the Frost Museum of Science, I chose most of those pictures. We have to link that after this. Yep. We'll put that in the show notes.
I'm an unpaid intern. I don't know if they want me saying that. I claim to fame here. Yeah, no, I like manifested that internship entirely.
I was like, I want to work in a museum in my graphic design professor. I was like, we have an old like student that works in the science museum. And I was like, great. Can they create an internship for me?
Amazing. That was like, you like, you made that. That was the next summer. They posted like a paid internship and I was like, you're all welcome.
Right. You set the bar high. That's awesome. I think you just your ability to kind of translate, in my opinion, you know, something so like dry or mundane and be able to like add that human element is so important.
And I think that's where we lose a lot of the importance of some of this creativity or design work. And we're being flooded right now with this whole AI path, right? And everybody's having these conversations about how AI is integrated into all these roles and these functions and definitely, you know, I'm sensitive to it when I think about my role as a marketer. And I think especially like creative and design.
We think about it too, too, because we hear all this chatter. That's just noise right now. But what was this moment to as you think about like when you needed to embrace AI, like you had to really think about your role, your future, your journey and like was it driven by the industry? Was it just the flood of tools or what motivation kind of let you up to get started in that?
Yeah. So I would say my first attempt at it was we had a client in 2023 that really let us experiment. And so from a creative perspective, that was really exciting. And I wanted to tell stories that I couldn't just through normal stock photos.
So think like giant squid attack under the ocean, submarine diver attacks the squid and then the third slide of the carousels like a squid burner. Like those images don't kind of already exist. And so we had like a lot of really interesting scenarios and that gave me a chance to be able to create unique content that wasn't there before. And then kind of let it simmer until this past like year when it's kind of had a resurgence.
Not a resurgence. It's always been there, but you know, there's definitely a lot more conversations happening around it in the last couple years. And about how to integrate that consistently for our clients rather than this one off client that I just happened to get lucky and get to make some really cool stuff for. So I personally am not really worried about it taking my job because I'm using it as a tool to make my ideas come to life.
But I have to have those ideas first. Like I don't think that AI has the capability to make that entire carousel storyline have all the slides be connected. I think you still need like essentially an art director role the same way that I might art director photo shoot and say, hey, move your hand here. Get rid of the twister watch.
This is a little crooked. All of that direction that you're giving during a real life photo shoot is also the same types of direction I'm giving to AI to make a product that's high quality and not just turned out. Those are some of my favorite creatives, but I really trusted us to just go for it. I wish I had more data on how those all did, but I have a lot of fun.
Yeah. Well, and I think it just shows the importance of taking this idea conceptualizing like such a broad and unique perspective on how to like convey the message to an audience that you can't get that in black and white prompts with AI, right? So you can tell creative things, but that creative prompt still coming from a human. You're still prompting it based off of your own direction, your own ideas.
So it sounds like, you know, if I am interpreting what you're saying, there was more excitement around AI for you to kind of be a tool to push the boundaries and thoughts versus that we're hearing both, right? We're having some people that are more resistant to it and fearful or some people are more exciting. And I just it's interesting to hear your perspective and it's very valuable, I think to remind ourselves, the prompt is the human. Yeah, and I think there, at least in the art and design community, there are some like ethical dilemmas around AI and a referencing intellectual property and sometimes very blatantly stealing that.
So I find that the way I use it, I feel like I'm getting a product that only my brain could have come up with rather than saying make this in the style of this other artist. Like, I think that there is a line that can be drawn and that line, I think, is your prompts and how you're feeding your requests to AI. So that it's not doing more than you want it to and I'm more, I mean, thinking and stealing. I love that.
And let's dig into some of those tools that you've been using a little bit more. And now we say tools, these can be like AI software platforms or it can be people who have kind of pointed you in the right direction to help you grow and adapt in this era. So what are some things that have helped you along the way or is it just time to experiment? Yeah, so I would say our internal team is a great resource.
Honestly, if I'm struggling with something, I will message the other designers and say, has anyone done this? Like, why is that still working like that? Because that's another kind of method of how I'm using the AI is I'm really trying to get it to do specific things or make specific changes. So how do I work with the tool the best?
And getting advice from my team has definitely helped. Otherwise, we're using pretty well-known AI tools. We're using mid-journey and chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat is my personal favorite because like I said, I want to have like a very controlled hand in art directing that image. And I personally find that chat, chat, chat, chat is the best to give very specific instructions.
So sometimes I'm like, no, move his hand like a little bit, you know, like, and it can kind of interpret that feedback a little better than something like mid-journey where you say move his hand a little bit and it gives you a whole new image. That's not all the first one. I know other members of our team do like to use mid-journey and I think that's just a difference in approach, which is the beauty of creative and design is some people might be interested in more open-ended problems. But the way I work, I have a vision in my head of what I want this end image to look like and I don't want to sit there fighting the robot to make it happen.
So like, I like one that listens to me a little more. No, I think that's great. And I love hearing that different members of even our internal team. So between the six of you, there are so many different perspectives and some people the same way that like I edit in Adobe products, like I use Premiere and other.
So many people hate Premiere and it's just what I have found works for me. And I still, you know, I say this all the time. There are every time I use it, I have to Google how do you do this in Premiere? It's just a tool.
Yeah, Google it still. No, I still Google it. I'm a creature of habit, but I still Google a lot. The only like there's a couple of search ear things I use to chat GPT for.
One is code. Like if I'm trying to pinpoint what I need to change to like make something on WordPress happen, I might paste the back end code and be like, tell me where to put this. And that just saves me a lot of time. But again, you still kind of have to know where to put it, how to get the code.
Like, you're still facilitating it as a tool. And then I make it make random names for me a lot. Like whenever I need to make some UI, I just can't be bothered to think of a fake name. So I just think of me some random names.
Amazing. I love hearing that and I love hearing that everyone has kind of a preferred tool and it's going to be different. It's not one single thing kind of taking over. You are still seeing because I can still see in each of your work, your point of view and your voice.
So it looks like these ads are coming out of refined labs as a brand, but they are uniquely Monica or uniquely someone else who's put the time and design. And focus into them. So you are still retaining your creative perspective while using these tools. Yeah.
And I think it also helps that we're generally, even as a team, using these for image creation and then making the ad itself our own. I think that helps to preserve a little bit more of that perspective, that personal perspective as well, because again, you're curating a piece of an ad. You're not asking it to make the whole thing. Yeah, it's a great point.
I kind of got me thinking, do you feel like AI, the way you're using it, we're using a refined labs from the creative standpoint has made it more collaborative as a group? Or do you think it's created more of like an individual play? Like, how do you think it's maybe refined labs, but also just how could you see that maybe influencing one way or the other individuals? I think as a company as a whole, it's been an interesting topic to get people talking.
So I've definitely seen more back and forth in those channels, specifically since we've made these efforts to utilize AI more. I think, like for the design team, there's not going to be the answer you want. We worked very like since we all have our own clients, like if we're not like asking for advice or opinions, like we're not really collaborating like that much. But like I said, like there's definitely just a new topic to converse on for everyone.
And I think it definitely has had an increase in like our slack communications and things like that when somebody finds something cool. Yeah, I think there's, I feel like that's common in any organization you go into, right? The roles become siloed based off of client work. It's just a natural way we do.
But I think that like the tool itself and from what I'm hearing is like you're using it so much more as a thought partner or brainstorm partners, or rather than distracting somebody that maybe is a little bit underwater or swamped internally, like you have this to kind of bounce ideas like, how would you do this differently or challenge me on my point of view here? And I think that that's where like as a tool too, like it becomes a very powerful guiding light for us to balance that human slash the AI aspects of decision making and or creativity. Well, so we kind of like how you got talked a little bit about how you got into, you know, the world of marketing and you know, you're kind of point of view on the tools. But thinking about like some of the challenges that come with this too, as things are getting harder, right?
There's some more and more pressure to move quicker, to adapt, to learn. How are you keeping that as a motivator to push forward with all of this kind of chatter behind the scenes that AI is taking all of our roles and? Yeah, I think something I've had to adapt to is that like external push to use it. As I mentioned, when I was using it in like 2023, it was because I had a desire interest goal for it.
I think what I'm learning is that there are ways to use it that are different for everybody. Like we've been saying like, different tools exist because everyone's process is different. They like different things and to not put too much pressure on myself to do things just because everyone else is. So I know like personally, I rely on AI mostly for that one specific task.
I'm not really delving in to seek out how it can like make my workflows more efficient because that is like not the knob I want to turn on my process. Right now, not that I'm not open to that in the future, but yeah, right now I want to use it to create. And I think the pressure to use it, I think the biggest lesson would be not to feel like you need to unless it's serving you. I love that.
I think that's a great answer. And I think that coming from someone in the creative industry, there's a lot of talk about artistic integrity and like how you protect your voice as an artist and knowing where your specific line is. And that line is going to be different for everyone, not just creatives, but everyone period and knowing where your line is and being willing to as long as you can keep up your efficiency in a team, that's not a piece that's going to. You kind of come back and take your job.
So I think that's a really cool takeaway. Yeah, there is there's also another kind of story anecdote I wanted to bring up, which is just everyone's different perspectives as a designer. And like, I know that there are stock photos or stock models that like I personally refuse to use because I see them everywhere. And that doesn't bother other people because I continue to see those stock models everywhere.
But there is a stock model that haunts me through my life. I've seen him in the Vienna airport. I've seen him on the backseat of my flight. I've seen him on the target app.
And so, and then I also know that I have seen that same model appear in some things like for a client or things like that. So it's like, I have the perspective that I'm like, well, I don't want to use that. Everyone else is doing that. And that's kind of why I approach AI the way I do is I actually, I don't want you referencing other stuff.
I want to purposely make something that doesn't look like we all got on Adobe stock and downloaded the same dude. I'm following you around there. Devin gets to test every time I see him because he's everywhere. And I swear he's like, I'm trying to phrase this in a way that's not like we use him for our clients, but some of the people do.
And I think, oh, Chris covered for me while I was out and he used one of the stock models. I'm like, I refuse to use her. And I just like suck it up because I know that that is just like me and my personal like idiosyncrasy or like preference is I'm always striving to make something that's different than what exists. Has there been a point for you that it has kind of felt so you talk about pushing back and creating those boundaries and drawing that line for yourself?
Has there been a moment where you maybe got nervous that you weren't going to be able to hold that line or you were too overwhelmed with 700 tools coming at you and people telling you to test this and test this and test this and test this? Has there been a moment where you just felt like it was kind of too too much too big, too many things? Yeah, definitely. I think when this kind of became an initiative here, I am always a little bit slower to adopt.
So I kind of I wait until I have a moment. I do need it. And sometimes that does bite me, you know, in the butt a little bit. Everyone else knows exactly how to use it.
I'm coming in. I'm like, I already have a project. I already have a due date and now I'm trying to figure out how to use this tool. But I am just I'm not a person that works well in and this is not the right word because I concept all the time, but like in the conceptual, I'm not great at making an ad that's not a real ad with an end destination.
I'm not good at sketching. I want to just get to the thing I actually have to make. I would rather design a whole video than storyboard, which I know is weird and a lot of extra work and why other people don't want to do that thing. But I just like I can't personally go into a tool with like no idea what I want to create and like see if it's a good fit for me or not.
So definitely always a little slower and that's a little intimidated when I get like a whole list of tools I maybe should be using and implementing. But like I said, like experimenting with them, ruling out the ones that don't work for me in my process personally to like cold the herd a little bit has definitely made that a lot more useful to me because then I know that the tools I'm using, I actually want to use in her help. Yeah, that's really I appreciate you sharing that because it's a vulnerable thing to share and I think a lot of people probably a lot more people will relate to it than either end of the spectrum. So what what has all of this whole journey that is of course only getting started and we are at the mid point of the journey.
We're at the mid journey if you are. Oh, I know I know I know I know I know. Coming from the perspective. I know I do hate funds, but when they're there they're there.
So in this journey, it's only going to keep changing and creating more more options, more chaos for you as a designer. What have you learned about yourself that you're really proud of through this and what are you using to keep pushing you forward? Great question. You got to say something nice about yourself.
We make everyone say something nice about themselves at the end of this. I think more so just in this conversation. I've realized how important it is to me to make unique content that I'm proud of. So I do think that it's helping me do that.
And honestly, whenever I have the opportunity to use it, I'm like way more proud of that work from like a conceptual standpoint. Then maybe the thing I make all the time just going into like Adobe Stock and Picture picking a photo, someone on a computer. Like that's maybe not as creatively satisfying to me is like being responsible for creating it from the ground up, which is what's happening when I'm like cat world takeover with like making a whole like world that didn't exist before. So important to remind ourselves that because something is available, it doesn't need to be used.
It doesn't need to be a guiding light for us to like have to do one way or the other. I think there's a lot of reflection I can take back from this conversation to on why am I doing something? So I'm doing and what is the process behind it? Like what is my driver?
You know, even in the marketing lens, like how do I want to action tools? How do I think that they enable me or slow me down and that reflection? I think it's just important for anybody to kind of take away from this discussion is like, what is the benefit to you and your future and growth? So I like it.
Yeah, like tools are the whole definition of a tool is something that makes your life easier. So it should make your life easier and not add a bunch of distress or complications. Absolutely. Well, I appreciate the discussion here.
I always like to close these out or we like to close it out with like one or two questions, just kind of get perspective. And for me, this comes from a non AI perspective. But if you think about the kind of the shift and we talk about this a lot from the marketing lens, but like in the creative world, what do you expect is coming next? And how do you think we or new designers or new creatives should think about it and be ready?
I mean, more content is counting is everywhere, saturation is everywhere. We're all feel like we're doing the same thing. So what's your thoughts or how do you feel? That's the direction we're going.
Yeah, I think it's inevitable that we'll probably see like an upswing in products that like lack quality because everyone feels like they can do this job because of AI and they might get close. But like you can tell when AI made something or like, like there's Reddit threads like AI or not of people like wanting to confirm, wanting to check before they give money to an artist and things like that. So I think there'll be a natural influx of everyone experimenting and thinking that they can do it for themselves. And then I think because of that, I'm guessing here, but maybe a movement for stuff that is very obviously handmade, created custom.
I think that's probably going to be a design trend of as now the whole market gets saturated with we're using AI, the differentiator becomes we're not. Like that. It's going to pop off for me to be soon. It already has really just become like a dropship website.
And I feel like that's kind of the perfect example of what I'm talking about. Like it started as this handmade thing. People saw opportunity to list there. And now you really have to like scour that for something that is handmade and not from AliExpress.
And I think just the authenticity to from that, like owning the fact that maybe this piece of a design was created in AI and the design is put together by a graphic designer versus this whole piece was made by AI, but we're not going to say it or like the just the honesty behind how teams are using these tools. And I do appreciate a lot of the stock photos and things like that are creating their own AI within their database as well. And those are very clearly marked, which is good because if I can find kind of a real person doing exactly what I want, I'm always going to pick that over AI because AI is not perfect. I don't want to spend time editing out of a finger, you know, like there's always nuances and I think you can still sort of tell.
So at least personally, like I prefer them labeling it. And if I'm just looking for something that's super basic, I'll filter the AI generated images out and move forward with what's always worked. Smart. Amazing.
Yeah. Monica, thank you so much for sharing your journey with us. We're so grateful for your time and insights and we hope that everyone listening will hold on to their unique perspective, find time for exploration and read up on some dinosaurs. Thank you all for listening.
We'll see you next time.